Devoid of marching soldats and the sounds and smells of the night market, the city seemed lifeless. No donkeys brayed. No beggars sat with outstretched palms. No water sellers wandered or called. The night was silent around Asha. The thud of her own boots on dusty streets and tiled rooftops echoed loudly in her ears, so she took them off and left them behind, continuing barefoot.
It felt like walking into a trap.
Asha had walked into a trap once before. She’d been hunting down a very old dragon and, after two days, found herself going in circles. It was on the third day that she realized the dragon was leading her in those circles. It was tracking her, keeping to the shadows, just out of sight.
The only reason Asha defeated it was because she pretended not to know. She played its game, walked into its trap, and when the dragon had her cornered and alone, Asha revealed just how unoblivious she was . . . and how sharp her claws were.
The trap waiting for her now was not so different from that dragon’s. The only thing to do was step right into it.
Swinging herself down from the roof and into one of the palace’s covered walkways, Asha paused in the arched window to scan the shadows. She was about to jump down when the sound of voices stopped her.
Asha heard Dax’s voice first, followed by her father’s. She lowered her bare feet to the marble floor, following their voices in the direction of her father’s largest courtyard. The same courtyard where Elorma first called her.
“I won’t,” Dax said.
“Then I’ll start killing them, one by one. Starting with this one.”
Asha stepped into the archway. The walls were lit with torches burning in their sconces. Their light glinted off a familiar black blade, gripped in the dragon king’s hand. It was one of her slayers. The last time she’d seen them, she’d been defending Kozu in the meadow.
Her father pressed its edge to a throat.
Torwin’s throat.
“Stop!”
The dragon king looked to the archway. “There you are.” Her father sounded strangely relieved. As if, in spite of everything, the sight of his Iskari was a salve for his soul.
Dax turned. His hands were tied behind his back and the two soldats guarding him had his weapons.
“Asha,” Dax said, “I told you not to—”
“Roa sends her love,” she said, silencing him with a look—one she hoped conveyed the truth: Roa’s on her way.
But where were Safire and Jas? Asha glanced around the courtyard.
Empty.
Her gaze fixed on Torwin. He didn’t look broken. He didn’t even look afraid as his eyes met hers from across the court. As if he’d resigned himself to this. As if he knew what was coming and he was going to face it, unwavering.
The distance across the courtyard had never felt as vast and uncrossable as it did now.
“It seems I’m in possession of something you want, my dear.”
“And what’s that?” She tried to sound calm as she moved toward her father, letting her hunting instincts guide her.
Go slowly. No sudden movements.
Sensing what she was doing, her father began to slide the edge of her slayer across Torwin’s throat. Blood gathered and spilled. Torwin’s body clenched.
Asha halted, throwing up her hands.
“No! Please. I won’t come any closer.”
Her father eased up on the blade, smiling a slow smile. If he was uncertain before, he was uncertain no longer. He did indeed have what she wanted.
Asha’s heart beat out a frantic rhythm as she stared at the blood staining the collar of Torwin’s shirt. The same shirt she’d kissed him in.
This was not going as planned.
Think, Asha.
In the back of her mind, a shadow moved.
Restless. Worried.
No, she thought. Her father knew they had dragons. Which meant he would be prepared for them.
Asha couldn’t let Kozu come here. They would kill him.
So she did the only thing she could think of. Pinning her hopes on Roa, she stalled for time.
“You tried to poison Dax with dragon bone. You tried to kill your own son.” She looked from her brother to her father. “Why?”
Their father smiled a cruel smile.
“You figured that out, did you? You always were the smarter one. You and I both know, my dear, your brother could never be king. I’ve always thought his affection for our enemies was a threat to the throne. And look: tonight he’s proved me right.”
He narrowed his eyes on Dax. “I’d hoped the ring would kill him out there. It would have been the perfect reason to start a war with the scrublanders . . . and finally subdue them.”
“You would kill your own heir . . . to start a war?” asked Dax, sensing what Asha was doing. Helping her stall.
“A dead heir is more useful than a traitorous one.”
Anger blazed through Asha at those words. “Is the same true of a dead wife?”
For half a heartbeat, a strange emotion flickered across her father’s face. Surprise, maybe. Or remorse. Whatever it was, he recovered quickly, his hand tightening on the hilt of his daughter’s slayer.
“Your mother disobeyed the law, Asha. She undermined my rule. I needed to make an example of her.”
“She was my mother.”
“She was corrupting you.”
Asha’s fingers itched for her axe.
The dragon king looked over her shoulder at something behind her.
“Ah,” said a voice that sent an icy chill down Asha’s spine. “I see you’ve found my wife.”
Asha spun to find Jarek standing in the archway. He wore a very fine kaftan the color of midnight. But while its threads glinted and gleamed in the moonlight, Jarek’s ravenous gaze turned what might have been a beautiful sight into a terrifying one.
Beyond him, a sound rang out: marching footsteps and clanging metal, getting louder and closer. Soldats who’d been nonexistent just moments ago were now bleeding out of the darkness behind him, pouring through doorways and into the courtyard.
The edge of her vision flared orange. Startled, Asha looked to the rooftops, where hundreds of soldats wielding freshly lit torches stared down at her.
“It’s time to fulfill your end of our bargain, my dear. It’s too late to cancel the binding, of course. But I’m willing to let Jarek’s slave live if you call the First Dragon and end this.”
The moment her father said the words, Asha felt it again: a dark presence, there in her mind. Kozu knew exactly where she was and the danger she was in. He’d known the moment she stepped into it.
And he was getting closer.
No, thought Asha, thinking of the soldats on the rooftops, all of them armed with bows and arrows. One archer against a dragon was nothing. But dozens? Asha’s hunting slaves had helped her take down plenty of dragons using only arrows.
“What’s it going to be?” Her father pressed the blade a little harder into Torwin’s throat, forcing the skral’s chin up. “The dragon or the slave?”
Asha didn’t take her eyes off Torwin.
“He’s coming,” she whispered. Hating that, after everything, her father still had the power to make her do what he wanted.
The dragon king narrowed his eyes at his daughter. “Don’t think you can fool me, Asha.”
“He knows where I am. He knew the moment I stepped into this courtyard.” She stared the dragon king down. “Because I’m his rider.”
Her father’s face darkened.
The black steel of her slayer shimmered as the dragon king motioned to Jarek. All around the walls, archers took up their positions. Halberds and spearheads glittered at the ready.
“If you want this slave alive, you’ll strike Kozu down the moment he arrives,” said the dragon king. “If you don’t, I’ll cut his throat open in front of you.”
Asha knew better than to believe a liar. If she did as he said, Torwin would die anyway. Her father would have what he wanted. There’d be no reason to keep him alive. And if she chose Kozu and let Torwin die, the soldats would kill Kozu before he could escape.
She was going to lose them both.
“May Death send his worst,” Torwin said softly, interrupting her thoughts. Asha’s gaze snapped to him. He kept his eyes on her, like she was the one steady point in a world spinning out of control.
“Cold to freeze the love in my heart . . .”
“Silence,” hissed the king.
“Fire to burn my memories to ash . . .”
The dragon king pressed the blade harder, trying to choke off Torwin’s voice. But if he pressed too hard, he would kill him. And he couldn’t kill him—not before Kozu arrived.
“Wind to force me through the gates . . .”
They were Willa’s words he spoke. Binding vows. And they were something else too.
Death is a release, he’d told her once.
“Time to wear my loyalty away . . .”
“No.” Asha moved toward him.
“Stay back,” her father warned.
Asha halted. Her gaze locked with Torwin’s. “Don’t you dare.”
Torwin’s gaze never left her face. His eyes were silver sad. “I’ll wait for you, Asha, at Death’s gate.”
Asha thought of Death calling Willa’s name.
Her hands fisted. “Death is not your god.”
A shadow passed overhead, making the stars wink out. The soldats shifted uneasily as her father looked to the sky. There was a sound like a rushing of sighs and Asha felt a familiar wind on her face.
A blazing fire shot across the sky, lighting up half her father’s archers on the rooftops. They screamed and thrashed their arms, burning brightly before falling to their deaths.
Kozu landed next to his rider. The ground shook with his weight. His black scales glittered in the torchlight, and his yellow eye narrowed on the dragon king while his body curled protectively around Asha.
“Now!” Jarek commanded.
Arrows rained down.
“No!” Asha screamed.
Kozu roared as arrowheads sank into his flesh and tore through his wings.
“Strike,” said the dragon king.
Kozu hissed and thrashed. Arrow shafts stuck out of his hide. He didn’t know who to attack first. Were the archers the bigger threat, or the king?
“Strike now!”
Asha looked from Torwin to Kozu and back, frozen.
More arrows flew. Kozu roared with pain and rage. Blood dripped from his wings and ran down his flanks.
The First Dragon made up his mind. He rounded on Asha’s father, leaving Asha undefended.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jarek draw his saber. She felt him move toward her.
In his panic, the dragon king turned, keeping the slave between him and the fire-breathing monster, using the slave as a shield.
Asha’s gaze fixed on her father’s back. In one single heartbeat, the past, present, and future wove together like a tapestry.
Her mother ice-cold in her bed.
Her brother failing to win his people’s loyalty.
The boy she loved, walking through the gate of the dead. Alone.
This king had to die.
Her fingers wrapped around the handle of her hunting axe. Lifting it from her belt, Asha drew the axe back. She knew the punishment for regicide. She knew the moment her axe left her hand that her life was forfeit.
And still, she threw it.
“No!” Dax screamed.
Asha’s axe sailed toward the dragon king, whistling through the air before carving easily through flesh and bone. A sickening silence descended.
Jarek stopped mere steps from Asha. His shining saber fell to his side as he stared at his king.
Dark red blood seeped across the dragon king’s golden robe. Asha’s slayer clattered to the stones as he staggered, releasing the skral, and turned to face his daughter. The tip of her axe stuck through the front of his chest, where it sliced through his heart.
Her father touched his crest, blotted with his own blood. He gulped and gulped. Blood spread and spread.
“Asha . . . ?”
His voice echoed against the walls of the court, but not as loudly as it echoed inside her own rib cage, catching there to haunt her heart.
The dragon king fell to the ground at her feet, his body contorted, blood pooling all around him. Just like every dragon Asha had ever killed. His sightless eyes stared up at her. Asha stared back, unable to look away.
Darkness enveloped her then. Torwin pressed her face into his chest, blocking out the sight of her father’s corpse. He cupped her head, holding her tight as she shook, her hands bunching the fabric of his shirt.
“Get away from her, skral,” Jarek growled.
Torwin held her tighter.
And then: the piercing cry of a hawk filled the air.
Torwin loosed Asha as a flurry of flaming arrows sailed through the air above them. Each and every arrow met its mark, sinking into the chests of the archers on the walls.
The courtyard erupted into motion as the scrublander army poured into the court, its ranks joined by draksors and skral, all of them armed to the teeth. Roa led them. The curve of her double-edged blade already shone with blood as her gaze searched the crowd. At her side stood Safire, her eyes blazing.
Roa gave a command. Her hawk flew to Dax.
“Kill them!” Jarek screamed at his soldats. “Kill them all!”
But the soldats were outnumbered and the dragon king was dead. The next time arrows rained down, there were only half as many.
Asha turned to Kozu, who was bleeding and studded with arrows. The First Dragon watched her with a calm, slitted eye. His body arched around her as she pulled the arrows out, thinking of Shadow. Of the blood streaming from the gash in his chest.
But Kozu’s wounds were minor. Kozu was going to live.
Torwin grabbed a dead archer’s bow and caught arrows as they sailed past, quickly shooting back, picking the rest of the balcony archers off, one by one. The clash of metal on metal rose as soldats charged. Asha heard the sickening sound of bodies connecting with blows.
Dax was at Roa’s side. They fought back to back as Essie flew in a tight, protective circle above.
And in the distance was the sound of a multitude of wings.
A moment later, the rooftops lit up with fire, breathed from the bellies of dragons swarming like storm clouds above them. Any archers still on the rooftops were there no longer. The gust of dragon wings rushed through the courtyard as they landed. When the rooftops became too crowded, the others flew in circles above.
The courtyard went silent and still. Overpowered and surrounded, soldats began laying down their weapons and surrendering. All except Jarek, who stared down Dax, both hands gripping his saber.
Dax approached, his footsteps ringing with victory. “You’re finished.”
Jarek spat at Dax’s feet. “If I’m to die, I’ll die defending the true king.”
“So be it,” a voice rang out. A knife hissed through the air, followed by two more. They sailed from Safire’s hands and sank into Jarek’s chest.
His saber fell, clanging against the marble floor. He reached for the hilts, trying to pull them out. Scrublander soldiers rushed in, tackling him to the floor and fastening irons around his wrists and ankles.
Safire stood over him, breathing hard, her last throwing knife gripped in her hand. “I should have done this a long time ago.”
She stabbed the knife in his heart.